Hi GeorgeH:
As you may know, in the US, PBS - non comercial mainstream TV, is in love with British Comidy (Britcoms they call them). Begining with Monty Python, to Good Neighbors, the Fall and Rise of Reginald Perinn, they played it all. A few years back, they stumbled. They got a hold of Alexi Sayles, and ran about six episodes. It was the only Britcom that they did not repete. I believe the nail in the Alexi serries coffin, was the line: Look at what has happened to the great Soviet revolution... seventy years of hardship, blood and sacrifice, to become a tarted up version of the west.
I was in heaven! Alexi Sayles on US Telly, Glastnost had come to the US. Then some exec. actually watched it, and it was yanked (intresting word) as remains the only Britcom not rerun into the ground.
As a red dyper baby during the McCarthy era, the line I loved the most, was Sayles describing his first day of school...
The teacher asked our names... Jane Smythe, John Evans, Henry Jones... it comes to me... Can I be called Student X? No what is your name? I would rather be called Student X! No you must tell me your name. Alright, my name is Alexi Kosigan Joseph Stallen Lennin Sayles. Very good, we will just call you Student X!
Brilliant. It reminded me of telling my teacher that I was not a cub scout because my father would not let me join facist youth organizations. Then, me, all of eight, explaining to the rather vexed principle, to whom I was immediatly sent, what facism meant, before she called my old dad, who came to school to scream at her for a little while...
Larry